Spy work, patience paid off

Tuesday

May 3, 2011 at 12:01 AMMay 3, 2011 at 10:41 AM

WASHINGTON - After nearly a decade of anger and fear, America rejoiced yesterday at the demise of Osama bin Laden, the mastermind behind the horrific 9/11 attack. Navy SEALs who killed the world's most-wanted terrorist seized a trove of al-Qaida documents to pore over, and President Barack Obama laid plans to visit New York's ground zero.

WASHINGTON - After nearly a decade of anger and fear, America rejoiced yesterday at the demise of Osama bin Laden, the mastermind behind the horrific 9/11 attack. Navy SEALs who killed the world's most-wanted terrorist seized a trove of al-Qaida documents to pore over, and President Barack Obama laid plans to visit New York's ground zero.

Bin Laden, killed early yesterday - Pakistan time - in a daring raid and firefight at his fortified hideout in Pakistan, was hunted down based on information first gleaned years ago from detainees at secret CIA prison sites in eastern Europe, officials disclosed.

His body was quickly taken away for burial at sea, but not before a DNA match was done to prove his identity. A U.S. official said there also were photos showing bin Laden with the fatal wound above his left eye, a gunshot that tore away part of his skull. The photos were not immediately released.

"The world is safer. It is a better place because of the death of Osama bin Laden," Obama declared, hours after U.S. forces killed the al-Qaida leader in the middle-of-the-night raid on his compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan.

The SEAL team thinks bin Laden had lived at the compound for six years, one U.S. official said.

Obama was expected to soon visit New York, the site of al-Qaida's attack on the World Trade Center, and meet with the families of those killed, an administration official said.

The CIA already was poring over confiscated hard drives, DVDs and other documents looking for inside information on al-Qaida, including clues that might lead to his presumed successor, Ayman al-Zawahri.

Bin Laden's death unloosed a national wave of euphoria mixed with remembrance for the thousands who died in the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attack. Crowds celebrated throughout the night outside the White House and at ground zero in lower Manhattan. Thousands of students in college towns spilled into the streets and set off firecrackers to mark the moment.

On a moonless night, the SEALs, part of a 79-commando force, dropped down ropes from helicopters at the compound, killed bin Laden aides and made their way to the main building, where U.S. officials say the terror leader was slain in a gunfight. Within 40 minutes, the Americans were gone, taking bin Laden's body to the USS Carl Vinson, where he was slipped into the sea.

"For my family and I, it's good, it's desirable, it's right," said Mike Low of Batesville, Ark., whose daughter Sara was a flight attendant aboard the hijacked plane that was flown into the World Trade Center north tower. "It certainly brings an ending to a major quest for all of us."

Halfway around the world, a prominent al-Qaida commentator vowed revenge for bin Laden's death. "Woe to his enemies. By God, we will avenge the killing of the Sheik of Islam," he wrote under his online name Assad al-Jihad2.

The terrorists "almost certainly will attempt to avenge" bin Laden's death, CIA Director Leon Panetta wrote in a memo that congratulated the agency for its role in the operation. "Bin Laden is dead. Al-Qaida is not."

Within a few hours, the Department of Homeland Security warned that bin Laden's death was likely to provide motivation for attacks from "homegrown violent extremists" seeking revenge."

There were questions about Pakistan's role in bin Laden's years in hiding. Both Obama and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said cooperation from the Pakistani government had helped lead U.S. forces to the compound where he died.

But John Brennan, White House counterterrorism adviser, said it was inconceivable that the terrorist fugitive didn't have some support in Pakistan, where his hideout had been custom-built six years ago in a city with a heavy military presence.

By their condemnations, bin Laden's supporters confirmed his death in what U.S. officials said was an operation years in the making. Even so, officials were weighing the release of at least one photo taken of bin Laden's body as part of what Brennan called an effort to make sure "nobody has any basis to try and deny" the death.

U.S. officials said the information that ultimately led to bin Laden's capture originally came from detainees held in secret CIA prison sites in eastern Europe. There, agency interrogators were told of an alias used by a courier whom bin Laden particularly trusted.

It took four long years to learn the man's real name - Kuwaiti-born Sheikh Abu Ahmed - then years more before investigators got big breaks in the case. Sometime in mid-2010, the man was overheard using a phone by intelligence officials, and last July Pakistanis working for the CIA drove up behind a white Suzuki navigating the bustling streets near Peshawar and wrote down the car's license plate.

The man in the car was Ahmed, and over the next month CIA operatives would track him throughout central Pakistan. Ultimately, administration officials said, he led them to a sprawling compound at the end of a long dirt road and surrounded by tall security fences in a wealthy hamlet about 30 miles from the Pakistani capital.

The National Security Agency worked to scoop up any communications coming from the house. It wasn't easy: The compound had neither a phone line nor Internet access. Those inside were so concerned about security that they burned their trash.

U.S. counterterrorism officials considered bombing the place, an option that was discarded by the White House as too risky, particularly if it turned out bin Laden was not there.

Instead, Obama signed an order on Friday for a team of SEALs to be lowered from helicopters into the compound under the cover of darkness.

In the ensuing 48 hours, the president toured tornado-damaged Alabama and delivered a joke-filled after-dinner speech to the White House Correspondents Association. When the operation got under way, though, he slid into his chair in the Situation Room in the White House, where Brennan said the president and his aides "were able to monitor in a real-time basis the progress of the operation" from beginning to end.

(SEALs customarily have video cameras attached to their helmets.)

The commando team had raced into the Pakistani night from a base in Jalalabad, just across the border in Afghanistan. The goal was to get in and get out before Pakistani authorities detected the breach of their territory by what were to them unknown forces and reacted with possibly violent results.

Brennan said the time in the Situation Room was "probably one of the most anxiety-filled periods of times in the lives of the people assembled ... minutes passed like days."

Much of the time was spent in silence. Obama looked "stone-faced," one aide said. Vice President Joe Biden fingered his rosary beads.

The code name for bin Laden was "Geronimo." The president and his advisers watched Leon Panetta, the CIA director, on a video screen, narrating from his agency's headquarters across the Potomac River what was happening in faraway Pakistan.

According to officials who declined to be identified, bin Laden was shot in the head during a firefight, and his body was identified to near 100 percent certainty through DNA testing. Photo analysis by the CIA, confirmation by a woman believed to be one of bin Laden's wives, who was also at the compound, and matching physical features added confirmation, they said.

The only information about what occurred inside the compound came from American officials.

In addition to bin Laden, one of his sons, Khalid, was killed in the raid, Brennan said. Bin Laden's wife was shot in the calf but survived, a U.S. official said. Also killed were Ahmed and his brother, both earlier identified as two of bin Laden's al-Qaida facilitators, and an unidentified woman.

Twenty-three children and nine women were in the compound at the time of the assault and were turned over to Pakistani authorities, said a U.S. official. Within 40 minutes, the operation was over, and the SEALs flew out.

There was one last nerve-wracking moment back inside the White House, Brennan said, when the Pakistanis, kept in the dark by their allies, started scrambling their jets. There was brief concern that the U.S. force might be in danger.